Share

Melania Trump didn’t read the news yesterday. She didn’t turn on the television. She didn’t listen to the lies they were all saying about her. She barely even looked up when Donald brought Meredith McIver into the room. Meredith was sweet.

“Hi, everyone has decided to blame everything on me,” she said. “And I feel great about it.”

This broke Melania’s heart, because she knew it wasn’t true. Melania was the only one who knew the truth about who wrote her speech, and she would never tell. Thinking about Meredith made her sad, but she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to think about any of it. She just wanted to do what she always did when she was sad: She wanted to play with her My Little Ponies.

Yesterday had been filled with people coming in and out of her room. They would take one look at her sitting on her golden play pillow, surrounded by My Little Ponies, dressed up as Twilight Sparkle, and they would sort of freak out and leave. Like she was some kind of crazy person. She wasn’t crazy. The whole world was crazy. She was just playing with her ponies, which Donald had said she could bring to Cleveland if she promised to clean them up and put them back in her toy trunk when she was done. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Paul Manafort had asked her to take off the Twilight Sparkle costume and talk to him. “Just person to person,” he said. “I can’t talk to you if you’re acting like a pony.” Melania pointed her unicorn horn at him and started to sing Twilight Sparkle’s most beautiful song, “Play Your Part,” in Slovenian:

I have my wings, I wear this crown, I’m a princess, this is true. But it’s still unclear to me, just what I am meant to do. I want to have a purpose, want to do all that I can, I want to make a contribution, I want to be a part of the plan.

Paul was quiet for a long time after she finished. She didn’t know what he was thinking. “It’s a beautiful song, Melania. Did you just make that up?”

“I — no. Yes? I do not know.” Paul got down on the floor with her. “Paul, no, don’t sit on Applejack. You are putting your butt on my pony and you must move.” Paul moved and handed Applejack over.

Paul looked confused. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic,” he said. Melania hated Paul. She hated his face. She hated his hair that looked like it was floating above his head like ghost hair. “Melania, you have to tell us what happened with the speech.” Melania shook her head. She would never tell him. He didn’t deserve to know.

A man named Sean Spicer came next. He was trying to stay positive. “Hey, look at all these cool ponies, Melania. What are their names?” Melania told him. “Applejack, Twilight Sparkle, Shutterfly, Pinkie Pie —“

He stopped her. “Wow, yeah. That’s a lot of names. Which one is that one with the rainbow hair? Is that the gay one?”

Melania shook her head, “No! She is just pony! She likes to play sports! Leave me alone! You don’t know anything about anything! Who are you even?” Melania lit a match and threw it at him. It burned a small hole in his sweater. “Next time, it will be blowtorch, Sean. I am not even joking, because I do not think jokes are funny.” Sean was gone.

Tiffany came in next. “Hahaa, you suck,” she said, smirking. Then she stepped on Melania’s foot and pretended it was an accident. Melania ignored her. When Tiffany had squeezed out that bottle of toothpaste into her favorite pair of nude heels and said “Hahhaaaa, got you,” or when Donald Trump Jr. borrowed her hair products without asking, she never raised her voice. She never got angry. Only her ponies knew what was in her heart.

The room was dark later when Donald brought her a snack of sliced apples and ginger ale. “You need to eat something, baby. And then you need to tell me what happened.”

“I am sorry, Donald.” Melania shook her head and some of the Twilight Sparkle mane got onto Donald’s face. He coughed for a long time.

“Please get your mane out of my face,” he said.

Melania put her head on his lap. Her unicorn horn poked him in the stomach, but he didn’t say anything. He just held her hoof while she cried a little. She remembered the first night she had bought the Twilight Sparkle costume. “Do you remember I put on the Twilight Sparkle costume and you put on Pinkie Pie costume and then we make intercourse?” she asked. Donald nodded. “And then you compared your penis to a unicorn horn and I did not like that and we kept making intercourse?”

The twilight made Donald glow like a jack-o’-lantern that was 100 percent on fire.

“Do you remember that you wanted me to use the tail of the pony for the stimulation of the testicles,” she continued, “and I said this is not what My Little Pony tail is for. And then you told me it was okay, that I did not have to do it, that you would always love me forever? Well. I don’t want to do this. I do not want to tell you what happened. You will never understand.”

Donald nodded. “Okay, then Meredith is going to have to go down for this.” It was sad, but that was the only way. How could she tell him what had happened? He got up and started to leave. “I’m going to do some deep squats later, do you want to come and watch?”

Melania loved to watch Donald do his squats. “Yes, of course, Donald. I love you.”

Donald said he loved her too, but he waited until he was almost out the door, and the words sounded empty. She had let him down. She had let everyone down. She wished at that moment that she really was a pony, and she could gallop away to Ponyville and live forever with her friends and never be alone.

The closet door opened, and out of the darkness stepped Michelle Obama. She was dressed as the princess pony, Princess Celestia. Melania was jealous of Michelle’s pony costume tonight, but she didn’t tell her. Michelle always had the best costumes, and tonight, more than any other night, Melania felt like it was the real Princess Celestia standing in front of her. “You didn’t tell them I am your friend, Twilight Sparkle,” Michelle said. “I’m very proud of you.”

Melania cleared some space on her golden floor pillow for Michelle, and smiled. “I will never tell them. Friendship is magic.”